The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1887-08-02
STRANGE USES OF PAPER.
How the Racing Shells of Leading
Rowing Clubs Are Made.
Interesting Description of the Methods
Inployed I'm the Manufacture of Paper
Car w heels, Building Paper and
Other Articles.

paper is the building OF paper boats,
under the patents recently expired, of
z. Waters. These boats are made of
an ordinary Manila paper of good
quality, usually in five thicknesses, in
all only one-sixteenth of an inch thick,
except in parts where there is a rein
enforcement of one or two extra strips.
The process Of making them Is simple.
A model of soft pine is made the full
size of the boat, the bow end being
of two pieces which can be detached.
The paper is delivered in long rolls;
the model is turned upside down on a
long frame; one narrow strip of paper
and then second .are first laid on
where the keel would be, and then one,
two, three, four, five sheets are success
sively laid along and nodded close to
the model, each as it is put on being
coated with shellac and with glue to at
tach the next sheet closely to it. Thus
done up in paper the models are taken
TO the drying-rOom, where heat of
about $50 degrees F., continued for
five days, consolidates the glued paper
INFO solid mass. The movable pieces
of wood at the bow are unscrewed and
taken out, and with, this place for a
start, it is easy to peel the boat off the
model, ss peach-skin comes off a fresh
peach. A keel Is now fastened inside
the boat, several extra layers of shellac
are put on outside and inside, a strip
of wood is fastened in for gunwale,
and the shell is presently ready for its
fittings, seats and outriggers. They
are mostly racing shells, from single
scull up to eight-oar, but one boat has
been built as large as AZ feet long by
4 feet 4 inches beam, to hold
forty-two persons, this, of course, be-
ing stayed by wooden ribs; and a
steam-launch 10 feet long, worked by a
one-horse-power oil engine, boat and
engine together weighing but 430
pounds, was last fall successfully run
at speed of about ten miles per hour
on the upper Hudson. The cost is some
thing above that of wood. The single
scull, 21R feet long by 10k inches beam,
costs from $65 to 800; the eight-oared
shell, about go feet long by "a inches
wide, costs $500. 1t is an interesting
fact that the racing shells of Harvard,
Yale and Columbia in 1886 were all
from the same model from this shop, so
the contest was entirely one of skill on
oven terms
Not only is travelling by water in
debted to paper. but travelling by land.
A paper car wheel seems even more a
contradiction of terms than q paper
boat, yet it is now generally acknowl-
edged to be better, safer and longer
lived than one altogether of metal. 1t
was the invention of Richard n. Allen.
q locomotive engineer, afterward mas
ter mechanic of the Cleveland & Toledo
railroad, who took for his aim in life
the production of better car wheel
than those in use. His first set of pa
per wheels was made at Brandon, VT,
in 1869, and after much soothing he was
graciously permitted the use of wood
car on the Central Vermont road, I'M
oSA SaOJ "CAC eCobC0 tOA OLA
months. The Pullman Palace Car Com
pany in 1871 gave the first order for
hundred wheels; ten years after the
Allen Paper Car-wheel Company, with
great shops at Hudson, N. Y, and Pull
man, ILL.,, produced and sold thirteen
thousand in single year. One of the
Set first experimental with under a
sleeper" is shown, at Hudson, with a
record of 800. 900 miles travel.
1t is the body of the wheel only which
is of paper. The material is a calen-
dered rye-straw "board" or thick paper
made at the Allen Company's mills at
Morris, Ill. This is sent to the works
in circular sheets of twenty-five to
forty inches in diameter. Two men,
standing by pile of these, rapidly
brush over each sheet an even coating
of -four paste until a dozen are pasted
into layer. A third man transfers